I will leave this page up for
those interested in reading about the museum, but keep in mind that the
article below was written when the museum was open for business.

For
ages, the powers-that-be have been promising to build a grand Hollywood
museum, dedicated to preserving precious Hollywood memories.

Certainly, this town would
be the logical location for such a museum. The public wants one, Hollywood
needs one (if only to breathe new life into the old neighborhood). And
surely there must be more than enough precious Tinseltown heirlooms wasting
away in studio storage space (and in stars' personal collections) to stock
a dozen such museums.

Yet
despite all of the talk and despite several previous false starts, past
plans for a Hollywood Museum have all come up short.

Decades ago, for instance,
there were plans to build a spectacular Hollywood museum across from the
Hollywood Bowl. They even
bought up the land and tore down the houses of angry residents to make
way for the proposed project. Yet those plans fell through, and that land
still sits empty - except for the small DeMille barn
where "The Squaw Man" was filmed.

But at long last, Hollywood
finally has a museum. It's called the Hollywood Entertainment
Museum, and it opened in late 1996, right on Hollywood
Blvd.

Unfortunately, this isn't quite
what we were hoping for. This is a small, fairly modest museum, with a
few intriguing exhibits, but a far cry from the grand Hollywood Museum
we would all like to see. But it will do until something better comes along.

But
in the meanwhile, let's take a look at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum.

This museum's main drawback
is the the building that houses it. Although it's situated just a block
west of the famous Chinese
Theatre (a seemingly ideal location), it's located in the basement
floor of the modern Galaxy Center - you have to take an elevator down to
the museum entrance and inside the space is relatively small and office-sterile.

The museum's main strengths
are two large-scale sets from "Cheers" and "Star Trek"
- more about those later.

The
largest main room (called "The Rotunda") has a high-tech/industrial
look to it, and
houses an eclectic group of different exhibits, ranging from Ernie
Kovak's infamous ape masks ("The
Nairobi Trio"), to a sword and chestplate from Charlton Heston's
"Ben-Hur," to a display of old Max Factor cosmetics that
were once on display at the now-closed Max Factor
Museum, including the bizarre "beauty calibrator.")

Towering over it all, in the
center of the room, you'll find a "Goddess of Entertainment"
statue (which, unfortunately, does not live up to its billing.)

Nearby, there's a fascinating,
large scale model of the city of Hollywood as it looked during its prime,
called "Hollywood in Miniature". You can walk on top of the glass
which covers this one-quarter-inch scale city, and peer down at the Lilliputian
buildings around Hollywood & Vine. A timeline lists important
dates in the history of Hollywood.

A few steps away, you'll find
another display, this one with telephone receivers. Pick one up, push a
button, and you can listen to Hollywood legends discussing the industry:
Orson Wells
talking about money, Walt Disney
talking about animation, Jimmy Stewart
talking about acting, etc.

There's a tiny collection of
movie memorabilia, most notably the grotesque head of "Dorian Gray"
(from the movie of the same name), and the webbed foot of the Gill Man
from "The Creature From the Black Lagoon."

There are three women's costumes
on display - dresses worn in the movies by actresses including Marilyn
Monroe. You'll also find some camera equipment,
and a few video monitors which (at the push of a button) will screen film
& TV clips related to newspaper headlines posted in the area.

Unfortunately, the biggest
drawback to this museum may be its relatively small size - all of the exhibits
I just listed are crammed into the fairly small space of the Rotunda.

Every
half hour or so, the lights dim in the Rotunda, the Goddess lights up,
and visitors are treated to a multimedia show, featuring a short film about
the movies projected on numerous screens around the room, accompanied by
a light show of sorts. What you see is basically a series of clips from
famous movie scenes, ranging from Valentino to "Close Encounters."
But to a movie buff, it's almost like seeing your life flash before your
eyes - only in this case it's all those other "lives" we've vicariously
shared in over the years.

Eventually, a tour guide will
round up the people in the main room and begin one of two brief tours.

The tour of the "east
wing" consists of a screening a short movie and a visit to the foley
room. The "movie" is nothing more than 20 one-minute commercials
from the L.A. Times, featuring insightful looks behind the scenes
of movie-making; the very same ads we've all seen shown during the coming-attractions
trailers before movies. They didn't even bother to edit out the Times
tagline at the end of each brief episode. And it's shown via a video
projection system, so the picture quality is less than ideal.

The Foley room has promise,
but doesn't quite live up to it. First, visitors see a brief film about
the nature of the "foley" process, in which experts use various
props to add sounds to movies. Then guests are led into another tiny room
where they are encouraged to try their hand at doing the same - adding
sounds to a short silent film (called "The Chicken Detectives")
as it plays on a video monitor. Visitors walk on various surfaces, pick
up phones, ring doorbells, and otherwise try to match the sounds they make
to what's happening on the screen. Afterward, they get to watch their efforts
played back to them on a monitor. It's fun, but the results would be more
satisfying if the final movie mixed dialog and music into the finished
product. Instead, volunteers are rewarded only with the sounds they produced
themselves, which sound rather artificial standing alone.

The tour of the "west
wing" saves the best for last.

But first, you have to go through
three tiny rooms containing assorted props and costumes. Alas, the props
are (for the most part) very minor, and the clothing is locked behind glass,
still on hangers. It has all the impact of looking into one's own closet.
(Although the odd-shaped helmets from "The Coneheads" are an
amusing exception.) They should either eliminate these cramped rooms from
the tour or improve the quality of the items on display.

Finally, it's on to the good
stuff: some major sets from well-known TV productions.

First,
you step into a "Star
Trek” transporter, where you're "beamed" to your next
destination: the original set of the USS Enterprise's command bridge from
"Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The actual "transporter"
effects are rather cheesy, but once inside, the familiar bridge set will
warm any Trekee's heart.

You can actually sit in Picard’s
Captain's chair, check out the bridge control panel, take in the engineering
compartments (featuring some small jokes worked into the details), and
take a close-up look at Picard's desk (not to mention that round aquarium
that was always featured in the Captain's quarters.)

In the adjacent room is an
area devoted to large set pieces from the alien worlds of ST. Klingon items
include masks and the giant Klingon statues (actually made of Styrofoam)
that were featured in the DS9 episode where Worf travelled to his homeworld
and exposed a shape-shifter posing as a Klingon leader. Nearby are towering
statues of the "Prophets," and an incense-burning Bajoran altar.
On one wall are the original artist renderings of the same set pieces.

Considering that the active
"Star Trek" sets at Paramount
Studios are off-limits to tour guests, this may be your only chance
to visit an actual Trek set.

Finally,
you turn a corner, and find yourself on the actual set of "Cheers.”
It is great! For anyone who has watched the show, it's like coming home
to the place "where everybody knows your name." Everything you
remember from the classic TV show is there: the large bar, the wooden
Indian, the familiar pictures on the wall - you name it. You can sit on
Norm’s stool, visit Sam’s office, and even walk up the stairs leading "up
to the street” (which actually go nowhere). Some of the regulars (Cliff,
Rebecca and the rest) even carved their names on the bartop during the
show's final episode. Nice.

On your way out, you walk through
Sam's office and into a standard gift shop before exiting.

(I understand that they have
now added a "Star Wares"
outlet to the gift shop. Star Wares sells clothing and other memorabelia
owned by celebrities.)

When
you get back out on the street, you'll notice that the Walk of Fame star
for actor Ted Danson
(who played 'Sam Malone' on "Cheers") is located
right in front of the Museum. And just recently they gave Kelsey
Grammer ("Fraiser") a
star there as well.

Since I last took the tour,
they have added yet another well-known set from a popuar TV show.

This time, it's the set which
served as Agent Fox Mulder’s chaotic office from "The X-Files".
The set was struck from the studio’s Century City lot and transported to
the Museum, where it has been faithfully reconstructed with all of its
original set dressing.

The Museum also hosts temporary
exhibits: here is a list of their upcoming exhibit schedule:

The Entertainment Museum is smaller
than you might think, and all in all, it is a lot less than one might hope
for. But it's still well worth seeing, if only for the "Cheers"
and "Star Trek" sets. But you might want to hurry,
I've heard reports that those classic sets won't stay at the museum forever...

Prices: General
admission is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, $5 for students. Children
5 and under are free. Museum members are free.

Getting
there:
The museum is located in what used to be the Hollywood Galaxy center (now
called the Hollywood Museum Center), just a short distance (west) from
Grauman's Chinese Theatre. From Hollywood & Vine, go three
blocks west on Hollywood Boulevard to Sycamore. The museum site will be
on your right (north) side.

This webpage is not associated with any business
described in the article above, and does not constitute an
endorsement of this or any other business. The photos of celebrities on
this page also do not constitute
endorsements by them of any kind, and are used by the author solely to
illustrate this online article.(Click here to read
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